Caffeine blocks adenosine, a neurotransmitter that makes you feel sleepy, and that's how it does the thing most people use it for: stay awake or wake the hell up. There's a lot more going on in the brain, though. It increases transmission of dopamine (motivation and pleasure), raises serotonin levels (focus and mood), and acetylcholine (may help long term memory). It's a well known fact that people with ADHD have different reactions to caffeine than the general population. Some folks don't bother with it because "it doesn't wake me up" and others seek it out aggressively because "it makes me feel better."
So I'm sitting here, looking at my mother's 5 coffee a day habit, going huh. And her bouncing back and forth between a million projects, and her inability to hold down a job, and her seeking out new found family units every decade or so, the sorted-but-still-somehow-cluttered craft supplies all over the old house and the attic. And I wonder about what her college trajectory would have been without me, whether she was holding it all together or if it was a constant struggle. I think about her ability to balance a checkbook and get done the barest essentials, and how it got foisted on her when she was ten and filed under "do this or die" and how different that is than the normal lessons in adulting we get.
And yeah, I know she had some CPTSD stuff going on, and a different easily diagnosed neurological disorder that explains the dyslexia and early struggles. But NF isn't necessarily the culprit when you're looking at adult behavior.
So I'm just sitting here, going huh.
This sounds like one of those YMMV things.
What would she be like without the coffee?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on December 03, 2019, 05:48:51 PM
This sounds like one of those YMMV things.
What would she be like without the coffee?
Grouchy and miserable.
Mmm, maybe I'm wrong just as everyone else, but we perceive coffee as a panacea... the only negative issue with it ive encountered is drinking it in the afternoon or later which is when the sleep altering effects kick in, but that goes for any type of stimulant. Perhaps another general thing to be careful about it is if one consumes a lot, it tenses up your body and mood and I don't know the threshhold in which you need to exersice to compensate for it and relax.
I have a ~550mg a day caffeine habit and caffeine doesn't hurt my sleep. It gives me control over the ability to sleep. Sometimes this hurts more than it helps: "I want to relax" becomes "can't wake up", "need to be awake" becomes "FUCK IM READY TO RUMBLE LETS DO IT AUGH"
It's no panacea though. I have had too much before.
720mg is hitting deeply scary doses, and I did it out of absent mindedness once. I became a jittery anxious wreck, all brittle grins and shaking fingers and "NO it's okay I got it oh god oh shit I GOT IT please fuck I SWEAR"
I have heard of the dangers of caffeine overdoses exceeding the ones people read about in the news. The kind of stuff that doesn't just cause problems with the receptors it is MEANT to react with, but causes all sorts of unusual toxic metabolites because of the sheer dosage clogging all the "intended channels" and leaving barely-suitable, untrained interns from a rival company trying to clean up the mess.
Paracetamol overdoses do the same thing. In fact, if they didn't, they'd be harmless. Instead, they kill your liver.
But caffeine is certainly not the bogeyman some of these people going on about energy drinks and shit make it out to be, either. It has one of the widest therapeutic windows of any substance known to man, has incredibly mild and temporary side effects for almost every non fatal dose, and an incredibly strong dose response for its safety.
In terms of pharmaceuticals, it's in a class of its own. Name another legal substance you can safely get a reasonable effect out of across a full order of magnitude. (50 to 500 mg is well inside the safe margins for caffeine.) Over the counter meds usually top out around 4x minimum effective dose before you're nearing permanent damage. 8x is headed toward LD50.
Caffeine is really, really weird.
QG, I get moments like that too, when my dad, late in life, started hinting that he most likely had undiagnosed high-functioning autism, and all of a sudden things start making more sense, like why there was a palpable lack of affection but absolutely no absence of love when I was growing up, and why "emotionally neutral" was the default state in the house, and why intellect was held as a higher plane than emotion.
That "huh" moment can be really weird, especially since it doesn't come with certainty, just a "huh."
I just returned from Europe -- every time I go, I encounter all these reminders that over here in the US we do things the hard way on purpose.
How many Shakespeares do we have that would be writing genius plays if they weren't burned out from working long shifts at Walmart?
How many brilliant artists never have the energy to Be The Trouble They Want to See in the World because of some health care issue that takes all their resources to break even on?
How sad is it that ambitious dreams are for the rich? That many people are climbing up the base of Maslow Hierarchy in the hopes of one day having dreams?
When I larp in germany, I notice that people there take different kinds of physical risks than Americans do. The sense that if you get hurt, you can just go to the hospital and get it fixed up without completely decimating yourself financially -- it leads people to make different decisions. Different lifestyles.
Who would we be without the roadblocks put in our way?
Quote from: Cramulus on December 04, 2019, 01:49:53 PM
I just returned from Europe -- every time I go, I encounter all these reminders that over here in the US we do things the hard way on purpose.
How many Shakespeares do we have that would be writing genius plays if they weren't burned out from working long shifts at Walmart?
How many brilliant artists never have the energy to Be The Trouble They Want to See in the World because of some health care issue that takes all their resources to break even on?
How sad is it that ambitious dreams are for the rich? That many people are climbing up the base of Maslow Hierarchy in the hopes of one day having dreams?
When I larp in germany, I notice that people there take different kinds of physical risks than Americans do. The sense that if you get hurt, you can just go to the hospital and get it fixed up without completely decimating yourself financially -- it leads people to make different decisions. Different lifestyles.
Who would we be without the roadblocks put in our way?
It's an interesting take, but I disagree. I think Americans are just as vivacious as any other people on this planet, they just simply throw it all away in Drugs, Violence, Netflix and Jebus. (Healthcare is a matter I won't dispute btw, thats accurate)
Quote from: Cramulus on December 04, 2019, 01:49:53 PM
I just returned from Europe -- every time I go, I encounter all these reminders that over here in the US we do things the hard way on purpose.
How many Shakespeares do we have that would be writing genius plays if they weren't burned out from working long shifts at Walmart?
How many brilliant artists never have the energy to Be The Trouble They Want to See in the World because of some health care issue that takes all their resources to break even on?
How sad is it that ambitious dreams are for the rich? That many people are climbing up the base of Maslow Hierarchy in the hopes of one day having dreams?
When I larp in germany, I notice that people there take different kinds of physical risks than Americans do. The sense that if you get hurt, you can just go to the hospital and get it fixed up without completely decimating yourself financially -- it leads people to make different decisions. Different lifestyles.
Who would we be without the roadblocks put in our way?
There's more to it than that. When I was in Germany, I noticed that nobody wore PPE in the plant.
I asked them about it, and they said that - while Americans aren't cowards - Americans are too risk averse.
So I asked them "What's your injury rate like?"
Dude said "Oh, it's pretty bad." as if that were the normal way the world should work. Later, I learned that they have the exact same attitude towards driving at 250 KPH on autobahn every morning.
Quote from: LMNO on December 04, 2019, 01:23:00 PM
QG, I get moments like that too, when my dad, late in life, started hinting that he most likely had undiagnosed high-functioning autism, and all of a sudden things start making more sense, like why there was a palpable lack of affection but absolutely no absence of love when I was growing up, and why "emotionally neutral" was the default state in the house, and why intellect was held as a higher plane than emotion.
That "huh" moment can be really weird, especially since it doesn't come with certainty, just a "huh."
For the record, LMNO is the only one currently on the same motorcycle as the OP
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 04, 2019, 08:33:32 PM
Quote from: LMNO on December 04, 2019, 01:23:00 PM
QG, I get moments like that too, when my dad, late in life, started hinting that he most likely had undiagnosed high-functioning autism, and all of a sudden things start making more sense, like why there was a palpable lack of affection but absolutely no absence of love when I was growing up, and why "emotionally neutral" was the default state in the house, and why intellect was held as a higher plane than emotion.
That "huh" moment can be really weird, especially since it doesn't come with certainty, just a "huh."
For the record, LMNO is the only one currently on the same motorcycle as the OP
I really prefer not to talk about my childhood in any real detail. I assumed this was fairly normal.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on December 04, 2019, 08:38:24 PM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 04, 2019, 08:33:32 PM
Quote from: LMNO on December 04, 2019, 01:23:00 PM
QG, I get moments like that too, when my dad, late in life, started hinting that he most likely had undiagnosed high-functioning autism, and all of a sudden things start making more sense, like why there was a palpable lack of affection but absolutely no absence of love when I was growing up, and why "emotionally neutral" was the default state in the house, and why intellect was held as a higher plane than emotion.
That "huh" moment can be really weird, especially since it doesn't come with certainty, just a "huh."
For the record, LMNO is the only one currently on the same motorcycle as the OP
I really prefer not to talk about my childhood in any real detail. I assumed this was fairly normal.
That's cool and I'm not trying to say you should, but the thrust here was "I am sorting through my mental health shit and knowing it has a biological component means looking at my parents' behavior, including the parent who is no longer here to be interrogated."
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 04, 2019, 08:45:00 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on December 04, 2019, 08:38:24 PM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 04, 2019, 08:33:32 PM
Quote from: LMNO on December 04, 2019, 01:23:00 PM
QG, I get moments like that too, when my dad, late in life, started hinting that he most likely had undiagnosed high-functioning autism, and all of a sudden things start making more sense, like why there was a palpable lack of affection but absolutely no absence of love when I was growing up, and why "emotionally neutral" was the default state in the house, and why intellect was held as a higher plane than emotion.
That "huh" moment can be really weird, especially since it doesn't come with certainty, just a "huh."
For the record, LMNO is the only one currently on the same motorcycle as the OP
I really prefer not to talk about my childhood in any real detail. I assumed this was fairly normal.
That's cool and I'm not trying to say you should, but the thrust here was "I am sorting through my mental health shit and knowing it has a biological component means looking at my parents' behavior, including the parent who is no longer here to be interrogated."
Yeah, in general terms:
You take a kid whose parents were raised by depression era parents. Now, in the system in the 70s, they had 4 categories for children: gifted, normal, retarded, and everything else was "hyperactive", or ADHD.
I was not a normal kid. Not too long ago, I was told by a doctor that I trust that I am slightly autistic. Back then, that sort of difference meant "hyperactive," so they stuffed me full of Ritalin. Which is the absolute worst thing you can do to an autistic kid. I knew it wasn't working. However, the medieval doctors we had on The Rock had already warned my parents that, being hyperactive, I would resist taking my medication, as that
seemed to be a thing with "hyperactive" kids.
Being properly-raised authoritarians, they made good and bloody sure I took the Ritalin. They even figured out when I was hiding it behind my teeth, to spit out later.
So.
Now you have a kid that cannot interpret social cues instinctively, on a drug that makes that even worse.
A common event was this: I would meet new kids, and very quickly make friends with them. Within a few days, I would say or do something totally inappropriate to an occasion and suddenly my new friends became new enemies. I saw the pattern, but not the causation. My mother, being the kindly control freak she was/is, would then interrogate me for hours as to why I "couldn't get along," and that I should "just learn to stop making enemies."
My "normal" was friends turning on me. My other "normal" was being told that this was due to a failing on my part, and a devaluation of myself as the cause of this, both internally and externally. This lasted until I was in high school, when I went from being a little tiny kid into being a 6' tall dude who would react to perceived betrayal with a sound ass-kicking. For which, of course, I spent a great deal of time in trouble and ultimately found myself enlisted in the army just prior to my 18th birthday, my parents being by that point more than happy to sign for my early enlistment. Once I was in the army, I learned a great deal of how society works and how to interpret things going on. Horror and pain and digging are fantastic instructors. As is being in an environment where intentions count for nothing at all.
Results of all this can be summarized in 4 bullet points:
1. If I feel that a friend has turned on me or is laughing behind my back, and I feel that I have evidence that this is the case, that person and I will be enemies until the sun burns out.
2. If I am told that I should be more sympathetic to people who have done this, especially when I was at a very low point in my life when the original event happened, because the person who did so is at a low point in their life or whatnot, I am going to assume
that I present no value at all to the person telling me this, and I will probably never trust that person again in my entire life. This will not involve the blistering hatred that happens in #1, but it is still very much a thing. Very much indeed.
3. Doctors are mostly lazy-ass bullshit artists.
AND
4. Both my mother and I drink no less than two pots of coffee per day, each.
What makes all of this mess relevant is that, while I love my mother, I do not trust her (she is entirely too much her mother's daughter), and her behavior has in fact influenced mine. I make a pointed effort to not be a control freak, particularly with regard to my immediate family. So I think I dodged that inheritance. But I will also admit that I definitely inherited her (and her mother's) lust for revenge.
So yes. You cannot analyze yourself without also analyzing your parents.
Oh, and also your kids.
The biological component and the resonance of their quirks and personality traits we pick up. Some things I found obvious like how alcohol was always the overriding factor in our household, it's why we left Greece and my father behind, because of who he was with it. My mother was better than him at maintaining normality, but I still remember being in the pub most evenings at midnight, until I was old enough to look after myself at home.
Whenever I drink it's in the back of my mind, because of the opportunities they missed, the life they would have led without it, would it have still played out the same.
That dependency is there, it's shown up in my brothers, and I worry about the youngest who never saw the really rough times.
Quote from: The Johnny on December 03, 2019, 07:21:18 PM
Mmm, maybe I'm wrong just as everyone else, but we perceive coffee as a panacea... the only negative issue with it ive encountered is drinking it in the afternoon or later which is when the sleep altering effects kick in, but that goes for any type of stimulant. Perhaps another general thing to be careful about it is if one consumes a lot, it tenses up your body and mood and I don't know the threshhold in which you need to exersice to compensate for it and relax.
The headaches from withdrawal are a bitch, and for some people it can make them anxious, that doesn't sound like a serious drawback, but anxious can get really bad, in the really bad form it is known as a panic attack, and even less severe than that it can be very unpleasant.
Quote from: Faust on December 04, 2019, 11:21:32 PM
Whenever I drink it's in the back of my mind, because of the opportunities they missed, the life they would have led without it, would it have still played out the same.
That dependency is there, it's shown up in my brothers, and I worry about the youngest who never saw the really rough times.
I knew a guy in the army that refused to drink at all because both of his parents were raging alcoholics, and he figured that if he started drinking, he'd never stop.
So you had a non-religious American soldier who at age 24 had never had a beer. Weird, but strategically sound.
So, several years ago, there was a work-related trip that I couldn't go on, because of my anxiety problem, and my then-boss called me into his office, and intending to be supportive, talked about how his son, who was on the autism spectrum, had managed to adapt and was doing quite well. I thought to myself, I appreciate the sentiment? But this doesn't really map to my experience, since I am not autistic. I'd checked my symptoms; they don't match up.
A while ago, on a whim, I picked up an autobiography of an autistic woman ("Nobody Nowhere"). It was an interesting read, not least because her mental processes were so entirely foreign. I noted that she and I did have a couple minor oddities in common, but surely that falls into the bounds of normal human variation, because I am not autistic.
Quote from: LMNO on December 04, 2019, 01:23:00 PM
QG, I get moments like that too, when my dad, late in life, started hinting that he most likely had undiagnosed high-functioning autism,
... "emotionally neutral" was the default state in the house, and why intellect was held as a higher plane than emotion.
Well, neutral
is my default state, and I do place intellect above emotion, but that doesn't mean anything, because I am not
My brain is now doing that headache thing where it's in denial about something, and sorting out conflicting data.
This is going to take a while.
I don't think this is going to be a good week.
I don't like to think about my family much.
I was raised by a neurotic basket case who had been gaslighted into acting that way by a family dynamic involving an inheritance which was promised to "the best fit".
The maternal grandparents are drama-monsters who staged very nearly gladiatorial exhibitions every holiday. The goal: upstage and embarrass everyone else and come out with your nose clean. The prize: verbal pats on the head. The punishment: being verbally beaten within an inch of your life, threatened with calls to employers, the kicking into overdrive of the rumor mill of the small town it all went down in.
Even brief exposure to this environment in formative years can cause all fucking kinds of damage.
On the paternal side: a poor-as-dirt rez inhabitant meets a strongly racist, well to do Ukrainian Jewish family. The result was my dad. I never met his family, not even at his own funeral. The reason was simple: one part racism, one part "Mental illness? Mental weakness!"
My dad was bullied into taking his own life while struggling with mild schizophrenia and/or extreme bipolar disorder with psychotic presentation. I'm not sure because he could never get it looked at. He tried. I saw the results of that after his death: reams of hospital intakes, discharged as an attention seeker.
I barely met the man. He was in a casket when I was 8. He'd probably despise me now, given I'm trans and all, but fuck if I'm not going to try and do his legacy justice. It's all that I can offer to him. And he never got shit else, so I feel like I owe him something.
I don't like to think about my family much. Especially not as it reflects on me.
Quote from: nullified on December 05, 2019, 12:20:10 AM
I don't like to think about my family much.
I was raised by a neurotic basket case who had been gaslighted into acting that way by a family dynamic involving an inheritance which was promised to "the best fit".
The maternal grandparents are drama-monsters who staged very nearly gladiatorial exhibitions every holiday. The goal: upstage and embarrass everyone else and come out with your nose clean. The prize: verbal pats on the head. The punishment: being verbally beaten within an inch of your life, threatened with calls to employers, the kicking into overdrive of the rumor mill of the small town it all went down in.
Even brief exposure to this environment in formative years can cause all fucking kinds of damage.
On the paternal side: a poor-as-dirt rez inhabitant meets a strongly racist, well to do Ukrainian Jewish family. The result was my dad. I never met his family, not even at his own funeral. The reason was simple: one part racism, one part "Mental illness? Mental weakness!"
My dad was bullied into taking his own life while struggling with mild schizophrenia and/or extreme bipolar disorder with psychotic presentation. I'm not sure because he could never get it looked at. He tried. I saw the results of that after his death: reams of hospital intakes, discharged as an attention seeker.
I barely met the man. He was in a casket when I was 8. He'd probably despise me now, given I'm trans and all, but fuck if I'm not going to try and do his legacy justice. It's all that I can offer to him. And he never got shit else, so I feel like I owe him something.
I don't like to think about my family much. Especially not as it reflects on me.
Yeah, I feel that, even though the influence on me was caused by good intentions married to a primitive understanding of the applicable medicine.
My grandmother, though, would have known your grandparents on sight and joined the party. She was spite incarnate.
Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on December 05, 2019, 12:16:23 AM
So, several years ago, there was a work-related trip that I couldn't go on, because of my anxiety problem, and my then-boss called me into his office, and intending to be supportive, talked about how his son, who was on the autism spectrum, had managed to adapt and was doing quite well. I thought to myself, I appreciate the sentiment? But this doesn't really map to my experience, since I am not autistic. I'd checked my symptoms; they don't match up.
A while ago, on a whim, I picked up an autobiography of an autistic woman ("Nobody Nowhere"). It was an interesting read, not least because her mental processes were so entirely foreign. I noted that she and I did have a couple minor oddities in common, but surely that falls into the bounds of normal human variation, because I am not autistic.
Quote from: LMNO on December 04, 2019, 01:23:00 PM
QG, I get moments like that too, when my dad, late in life, started hinting that he most likely had undiagnosed high-functioning autism,
... "emotionally neutral" was the default state in the house, and why intellect was held as a higher plane than emotion.
Well, neutral is my default state, and I do place intellect above emotion, but that doesn't mean anything, because I am not
My brain is now doing that headache thing where it's in denial about something, and sorting out conflicting data.
This is going to take a while.
I don't think this is going to be a good week.
It is what it is. You're still you, whether or not you are autistic. It's not like someone dipped you in shit or anything.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on December 05, 2019, 01:02:23 AM
It is what it is. You're still you, whether or not you are autistic. It's not like someone dipped you in shit or anything.
I'm the same person I was yesterday, but now I have to rewrite my mental model of myself.
God, how stupid did I have to be to miss this? It's so bleeding obvious. I wonder if anyone besides my former boss figured it out. The psychiatrist I saw a couple times sure as hell didn't.
On the plus side, my obsession with parking in the same spot every morning, and my irritation when someone else takes that spot, now makes a lot more sense.
Well, whatever. In the end, this is mostly just a rearrangement of labels on pre-existing behaviour. Maybe I can figure out how to manipulate my own idiosyncrasies for fun and profit, once this headache subsides.
Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on December 05, 2019, 01:28:47 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on December 05, 2019, 01:02:23 AM
It is what it is. You're still you, whether or not you are autistic. It's not like someone dipped you in shit or anything.
I'm the same person I was yesterday, but now I have to rewrite my mental model of myself.
God, how stupid did I have to be to miss this? It's so bleeding obvious. I wonder if anyone besides my former boss figured it out. The psychiatrist I saw a couple times sure as hell didn't.
On the plus side, my obsession with parking in the same spot every morning, and my irritation when someone else takes that spot, now makes a lot more sense.
Well, whatever. In the end, this is mostly just a rearrangement of labels on pre-existing behaviour. Maybe I can figure out how to manipulate my own idiosyncrasies for fun and profit, once this headache subsides.
2 milligrams of benzodiazapine, and my weird mental tics turn into an analytical engine.
There's always an upside. Unless whatever you have kills you.
That's the goddamn truth there.
BPD made me actually kind of charismatic despite my shitty social skills from Aspergers. The list goes on. Everything balanced by something else like a spiral jenga tower of brain damage. "If it weren't for... ... it'd all collapse" for every piece.
Learn to leverage your neurodivergence as a new tool in the toolbox and you will be more powerful than you might be prepared for.
I don't like to think about my family much, but now I have and I am dwelling on my dad.
Think I'm gonna post that somewhere else though, it's wandered a bit from the topic.
I feel that both of my parents are non-neurotypical, but I can't be sure. My mom is definitely more emotion than logic, and my dad has never spoken enough for me to really have any idea how he thinks. They are both functional enough within our native culture, which is rural Tennessee. My dad worked the same decent paying skilled tech job (telecom) for 40+ years, retired more or less on time (his 60's). My mom stayed at home. Some of what I perceive as non-neuorotypicality in her could just be a result of 40+ years of stir crazy from being a housewife in a rural southern town, and being married to a really quiet guy. Her parents were typical of their generation in the south. Her dad worked, and her mom stayed at home and raised the 5 kids. She never got a driver's license. My dad's parents were pretty much the same story except I think there were, like, 12 kids or something.
I, myself, feel vaguely abnormal. I'm 47 years old and have never been in a relationship long enough to call it that, which is ...kind of unusual, I guess. I work 50+ hours a week at a moderately well paying factory job because I really just can't think of anything else to do with my time. I would describe my current mindset as a mix of intense boredom alleviated partly by chronic anxiety, which would probably also explain the conspicuously large collection of firearms and legumes that I have accumulated over the last couple of years.
My brother is the functional one. Wife and two kids (homeschooled, so yeah, fingers crossed) very good paying job as head computer guy at a decent sized company (makes about twice what I do) As a father he's the only viable branch of the family tree. Hopefully he's passed on some of the better genes to his kids.
Some of my issues may not be genetic. There was an event that happened to me at the age of five that seem likely to have resulted in some neurological changes. I blamed that event for decades as the sole reason for my weirdness, but now I suspect genetics, or at least genetic predisposition could also be a factor.